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| Legion Carries McDill’s Name |
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| News - Osawatomie | |||
| Written by Kevin Gray | |||
| Wednesday, 27 May 2009 07:00 | |||
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Fontana is getting to know Pvt. Harry M. McDill. The soldier, who was killed in action in southern France in October 1944, is honored in name by the Harry M. McDill American Legion Post No. 381 in his hometown of Fontana. But there’s even more to the story.  Recently, Mayor Darlene Carter was given a brass marker that once had been mounted at Osage Township High School. “I didn’t even know the school had another name. We always called it the Fontana High School,” she said. “It was all the same building that has since been torn down.” Carter and the Fontana City Council will determine what to do with the marker, which reads, “In Memory of Harry M. McDill, Class of 1943, Who Made the Supreme Sacrifice, World War II. Presented by the Alumni of the Osage Township High School.” The mayor said the plaque would have been nice to display on or near the City Hall flagpole, but she had some offers to buy the plaque. “Two different people said they would pay $25 to $30 for the brass. For this reason, I think it would be better off placed in the City Hall building,” she said. Harry M. McDill Post member Vernon Moore said he did not remember the circumstances of McDill’s death. “I had been sent to the South Pacific with the Air Force and had lost touch with Harry. Harry had graduated from Fontana High School and had gone to work for the railroad for a short time before going in the Army,” Moore said. Moore said the young McDill was with the U.S. Army. A headstone honoring McDill and his death in action was placed in Fontana Cemetery, Carter said. “A marker was set out by Harry’s mother, Rosa Chamberlin, but he’s not buried there,” Moor said. “His mother wanted to bring him back to be buried under the marker, but people told her to leave him where he was. So he’s buried overseas.” Nina Evert, a former Fontana resident and McDill’s half-sister, who now lives at Vintage Park of Osawatomie, remembered Harry as Mike. “He went by Mike. He was a tall boy and, as most people understood at the time, the youngest one in Miami County to get drafted,” she said, thinking McDill had just turned 18 at the time. Evert said Mike was Rosa’s only child, which is why she took his death so hard. “I was at Rosa’s and up on a ladder doing some wallpapering when the phone rang, and I took the call. He was sent for training in Florida and then from there to France. It was only about two weeks later when he was killed, and we got the call. It was so sad,” Evert said. McDill’s cousin, Rosey O’Brien, from Grover Beach, Calif., remembered her tall cousin as a good basketball player and said Mike was killed in the fighting soon after his arrival in France. “He had trained at Camp Blanding in Florida and was one of the first men from his outfit killed in the fighting. They sent his mother a Purple Heart, too,” O’Brien said.
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